Now in the­aters

A LA MALA This com­edy from Mex­ico stars Ais­linn Der­bez as Maria Laura “Mala” Me­d­ina, an as­pir­ing actress. She finds a sec­ond ca­reer testing the faith­ful­ness of clients’ boyfriends — and then she falls for one of the sus­pects. Not rated. 99 min­utes. In Span­ish with sub­ti­tles. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe. (Not re­viewed)

AMER­I­CAN SNIPER Based on the mem­oir by Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), the most pro­lific sniper in Amer­i­can mil­i­tary his­tory, this is Clint East­wood’s most com­mer­cially suc­cess­ful movie but far from his best ar­tis­ti­cally. East­wood han­dles the ac­tion scenes pow­er­fully but doesn’t thread them to­gether with the kind of nu­anced sto­ry­telling he’s ca­pa­ble of, and he leaves some loose ends dan­gling. The home-front scenes of Kyle with his wife (Si­enna Miller) and fam­ily be­come a bore, but Cooper is ex­cel­lent as a man in­creas­ingly ad­dicted to com­bat. Rated R. 132 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards)

BALLET 422 The film’s ti­tle refers to the 422nd work choreographed for New York City Ballet. This doc­u­men­tary fol­lows the cre­ation of 2013’s Paz de La Jolla , by Justin Peck, a 25-year-old corps de ballet dancer in the com­pany. If there is any drama in the film, it is the­o­ret­i­cal — the chore­og­ra­pher’s youth ver­sus the level of re­spon­si­bil­ity be­fore him. The film of­fers a be­hind-the-scenes look at City Ballet in ac­tion, with scenes of Peck, alone in a stu­dio de­vel­op­ing steps and video­tap­ing him­self with a phone-cam­era propped up on a pi­ano. Rated PG. 75 min­utes. Cen­ter for Con­tem­po­rary Arts , Santa Fe. (Michael Wade Simp­son)

BIRD­MAN OR (THE UN­EX­PECTED VIRTUE OF IG­NO­RANCE) In Ale­jan­dro González Iñár­ritu’s back­stage satire, Michael Keaton daz­zles with his bril­liant dis­sec­tion of a movie star, in artis­tic eclipse since he sold his soul to play a masked comic-book su­per­hero, look­ing for re­demp­tion on the Broad­way stage. Aided by a ter­rific sup­port­ing cast that in­cludes Ed­ward Nor­ton, Naomi Watts, and Emma Stone,

CHAP­PIE Direc­tor Neill Blomkamp brought us the much-loved sci-fi film Dis­trict 9 and the lit­tle-liked sci-fi film Ely­sium . Now, he of­fers a glimpse of a fu­ture in which so­ci­ety is po­liced by ag­gres­sive ro­bots. A man (Dev Pa­tel) re­pro­grams one to think and feel, and it fights back against the op­pres­sion. Hugh Jackman co-stars. Rated R. 120 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe; Dream­Catcher , Es­pañola. (Not re­viewed)

THE DUFF Teenage Bianca (Mae Whit­man) dis­cov­ers that she’s the DUFF of her clique — the des­ig­nated ugly fat friend — and sets out to change her ways. She en­lists the help of a jock (Rob­bie Amell) to give her­self a makeover. Based on the young-adult novel by Kody Keplinger. Rated PG-13. 100 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe; Dream­Catcher , Es­pañola. (Not re­viewed)

FO­CUS Will Smith at­tempts a ca­reer come­back, play­ing a slick con man who meets a beau­ti­ful pick­pocket (Mar­got Rob­bie) and falls in and out of love with her over the course of two jobs: one at the Su­per­bowl in New Or­leans and the other at an auto race in Buenos Aires. It’s usu­ally fun to watch slick grift­ing of this na­ture, but there aren’t many sur­prises, the jokes never quite work, and the film is bro­ken up like two episodes of a TV show. Aim­ing for The Sting , Fo­cus ends up closer to

THE IMI­TA­TION GAME This very en­ter­tain­ing movie could have been a lot more. Morten Tyl­dum has taken the en­gross­ing story of Alan Tur­ing (Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch), the Bri­tish war hero, com­puter pi­o­neer, and ho­mo­sex­ual martyr, and fit it into the familiar con­fines of a biopic stocked with Movie Mo­ments, which never con­vince us that things re­ally hap­pened the way the film de­picts them. Rated PG-13. 114 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards)

JUPITER AS­CEND­ING In 1999, Andy and Lana Wa­chowski changed block­buster film­mak­ing with the mon­ster hit The Ma­trix . Since then, they’ve tried to re­claim that magic to lit­tle avail. Their lat­est ef­fort stars Chan­ning Ta­tum and Mila Ku­nis as two peo­ple in the dis­tant fu­ture who at­tempt to over­throw a tyran­ni­cal reign. Rated PG-13. 127 min­utes. Screens in 2-D only at Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe. (Not re­viewed)

KID­NAP­PING MR. HEINEKEN Based loosely on the real-life 1983 kid­nap­ping of Dutch busi­ness­man Freddy Heineken (yes, that Heineken, played here by An­thony Hop­kins), this movie shows the rare half-baked plan that ac­tu­ally works out for the crooks. Sam Wor­thing­ton and Jim Sturgess play two of the kid­nap­pers. Rated R. 94 min­utes. Jean Cocteau Cinema , Santa Fe. (Not re­viewed)

KINGS­MAN: THE SE­CRET SER­VICE The spy movie shifts away from the gritty re­al­ism of Ja­son Bourne and Daniel Craig’s James Bond and back to the spirit of the 1960s se­cret-agent men in this col­or­ful, over-the-top ca­per by direc­tor Matthew Vaughn. Taron Eger­ton plays an aim­less kid who is re­cruited into an elite spy or­ga­ni­za­tion by Harry Hart (Colin Firth), and soon finds him­self try­ing to stop a hare­brained scheme by bil­lion­aire mas­ter­mind Valen­tine (Sa­muel L. Jack­son). This is a sat­is­fy­ing, en­er­getic, ir­rev­er­ent romp that is full of ideas. The MVP award goes to cos­tume designer Ari­anne Phillips. Rated R. 129 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe. (Robert Ker)

THE LAZARUS EF­FECT Olivia Wilde and Mark Du­plass play two med­i­cal stu­dents who learn how to bring the dead back to life, start­ing with a dog and then mov­ing on to hu­mans. The film is di­rected by David Gelb, who seems to be chang­ing things up af­ter re­ceiv­ing ac­claim for his foodie doc­u­men­tary

MCFARLAND, USA Kevin Cost­ner, who knows his way around an in­spi­ra­tional sports movie, plays a cross-coun­try run­ning coach in this film, which is based on true events. It’s 1987, and the coach finds him­self work­ing in a Latino com­mu­nity full of kids who have never been given a chance. He gets them to be­lieve in them­selves, over­come a va­ri­ety of hur­dles, and win a cham­pi­onship. Rated PG. 128 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe; Dream­Catcher , Es­pañola. (Not re­viewed)

tion, dis­cus­sions with his ac­tors to de­velop a script, and months of re­hearsal. The re­sult is a movie that is il­lu­mi­nat­ing, beau­ti­fully per­formed, unim­peach­ably re­searched, and shot with an in­spired Turneresque beauty by cine­matog­ra­pher Dick Pope. The film is per­haps a lit­tle long at two and a half hours, but that’s how long it takes. Rated R. 150 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards)

PADDING­TON The fa­mous stuffed bear stars in a comedic ca­per in which he ar­rives in Lon­don, is taken in by a fam­ily (headed by Hugh Bon­neville), and at­tempts to es­cape a nasty taxi­der­mist (Ni­cole Kid­man). Paul King di­rects with charm and in­ven­tive­ness, and the hu­mor is a near-per­fect mix of car­toony silli­ness for the chil­dren and Bri­tish wit for the adults. The sec­ond half may get too dark for smaller kids, but over­all, it’s a de­light. Rated PG. 95 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe. (Robert Ker)

QUEEN AND COUN­TRY John Boor­man’s long-awaited fol­low-up to his semi-au­to­bi­o­graph­i­cal Hope and Glory (1987) picks up nine years af­ter the events of the first film. Bill Rohan (Cal­lum Turner) is now a young man in mil­i­tary ser­vice dur­ing the Korean War, and his an­tics with his friend Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) get him in trou­ble with su­pe­rior of­fi­cers. An un­der­stated ef­fort with lit­tle con­ven­tional sto­ry­telling, it’s pos­si­bly Boor­man’s last turn as direc­tor — and the bravura of his ear­lier films is miss­ing. Not rated. 105 min­utes. The Screen , Santa Fe. (Michael Abatemarco)

THE SEC­OND BEST EX­OTIC MARIGOLD HO­TEL The whole gang is back — most no­tably Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Bill Nighy — for an­other stay in the ho­tel in In­dia for re­tired Brits (first seen in the 2011 com­edy). This time, Richard Gere brings an Amer­i­can twist to the pro­ceed­ings, get­ting a few of the women all atwit­ter. Rated PG. 122 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. (Not re­viewed)

THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WA­TER Stu­dents in both preschool and col­lege will love the lat­est SpongeBob SquarePants adventure, which is fast-paced, psy­che­delic, and hi­lar­i­ous. The plot trans­forms Bikini Bot­tom into a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic waste­land, takes SpongeBob far into the fu­ture, fea­tures wacky mu­si­cal in­ter­ludes, and ends up with the whole gang swim­ming out of their car­toon world and into L.A., where they trans­form into su­per­heroes (an­i­mated by CGI) and face off against a pirate (An­to­nio Ban­deras). Rated PG. 93 min­utes. Screens in 2-D only at Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe; Dream­Catcher , Es­pañola. (Robert Ker)

STILL ALICE Get ready to add this film to your list of “hard­est movies to watch.” A renowned au­thor and lin­guis­tics pro­fes­sor, Alice (Os­car win­ner Ju­lianne Moore for best actress) is in the mid­dle of a lec­ture when she loses her train of thought. Af­ter vis­its to a neu­rol­o­gist, she is di­ag­nosed with early-on­set Alzheimer’s. Even the open­ing scenes have a sense of dread about them, and we watch Alice and her fam­ily en­dure the dis­ease’s pro­gres­sion. The film can feel pre­dictable and a lit­tle too neat, and many sup­port­ing parts feel sketchy, but it’s held aloft by Moore. Rated PG-13. 101 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. (Lau­rel Glad­den)

THE THE­ORY OF EV­ERY­THING A film about Stephen Hawk­ing ought to be burst­ing with ideas. What direc­tor James Marsh came up with is a watch­able but con­ven­tion­ally struc­tured ro­man­tic biopic. Its se­cret weapon is Ed­die Red­mayne (who won the Academy Award for best ac­tor), bril­liant in his trans­for­ma­tion into the Hawk­ing we know, body con­fined to a wheel­chair, voice pro­duced by a ma­chine. Rated PG-13. 123 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards)

TIM­BUKTU In 2012, rad­i­cal Is­lamists oc­cu­py­ing the north­ern Mali town of Aguel­hok ex­e­cuted an un­mar­ried cou­ple by public ston­ing. The in­ci­dent prompted Abderrahmane Sissako to make this film about the im­po­si­tion of Sharia law af­ter the ji­hadist takeover of the leg­endary city at the edge of the Sa­hara Desert. For the most part, he leaves the vi­o­lence im­plied, and the film man­ages to main­tain some light­ness, even hu­mor, wo­ven in with its darker strands. Not rated. 97 min­utes. In English and var­i­ous lan­guages with sub­ti­tles. The Screen , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards)

UN­FIN­ISHED BUSI­NESS Vince Vaughn once more plays a put-upon, smart-alecky, white-col­lar shlub in this com­edy, which finds him as a small-busi­ness owner tak­ing two as­so­ciates (Dave Franco and Tom Wilkin­son) to Europe to close a deal. Things go awry in a hor­ri­ble and zany fash­ion. Rated R. 91 min­utes. Re­gal Sta­dium 14 , Santa Fe; Dream­Catcher , Es­pañola. (Not re­viewed) WHAT WE DO IN THE SHAD­OWS This mock­u­men­tary fea­tures the daily lives of vam­pires living to­gether in Welling­ton, New Zealand. Vi­ago (Taika Waititi), Dea­con ( Jonathan Brugh), and Vladislav ( Je­maine Cle­ment) ar­gue over the stan­dard of clean­li­ness in their vam­pire den and go out for nights on the town. At about 85 min­utes, the film is nearly too long, but it main­tains its ap­peal through ab­sur­dity and sheer charm. Writ­ten and di­rected by Waititi and Cle­ment (best known in this coun­try for their work on the HBO se­ries Flight of the Con­chords ), Shad­ows presents vam­pires living in so­cial ex­ile, bum­bling along, and do­ing their best. Not rated. 86 min­utes. Cen­ter for Con­tem­po­rary Arts , Santa Fe. (Adele Oliveira) WHIPLASH Miles Teller plays teenage jazz drum­mer An­drew Neiman, whose dreams of be­com­ing one of the greats hinge on sur­viv­ing mu­sic in­struc­tor Terence Fletcher ( J.K. Sim­mons, who won the Os­car for best sup­port­ing ac­tor), the sort of teacher who’s likely to throw a chair at his stu­dent’s head when re­quest­ing a drum­roll. This indie-drama by Damien Chazelle com­pellingly ex­plores the ways in which the power dy­nam­ics of a men­tor­ing re­la­tion­ship can turn a teacher’s ob­ses­sion into a stu­dent’s com­pul­sion. Rated R. 107 min­utes. Re­gal DeVar­gas , Santa Fe. (Loren Bien­venu)